CRANKSHAFT

CONSTRUCTION
Crankshaft:
The stresses which arise in a crankshaft are
mainly due to bending and torsion.
The actual stressing is complex which may
consist of a number of stresses acting in more
than one plane.
The stresses are summarised as follows:
a) That arising out of bending from combustion
load, static weight of piston, connecting rod etc.
and inertia forces.
All components of a crank i.e. the pin, webs and
main bearing journals are stressed due to
bending.
The effect of bending is examined approximately on the
simplified assumption of a straight shaft analogy.
It considers one crank as a straight circular beam which is
supported at a span taken from the ends of adjacent main
bearings.
The load on crankpin is considered as concentrated at the
centre.
The journals in the bearing are considered as fixed or
encastre. The webs are subjected to end fixing moments
due to the crank pins being encastre in webs.
b) that due to axial bending from propeller axial
thrust variation or from unbalanced couples.
C) that due to transmission of variable torque
producing twisting of the main bearings journals
and crankpins subjecting all those components
to shear..
d) that due to high tensile hoop stress set up on
the webs and radial compressive stress on the
pins by virtue of the shrinkage of webs on
journals.
e) A direct shear stress on the crank pin and main
bearing journals owing to the firing load. The
major stresses as calculated on simplified
assumptions are cyclic stresses which subject
the material to fatigue.
Failure mostly occurs owing to progressive fracture
caused by repeated bending
and from reversed torsional stresses. Severe
bending stresses arise out of one or more main
bearings being lower or
higher from the rest.
The normal calculations do not take
into account the acceptable misalignment due to
wear down of main bearings.
 Material of Construction:
High tensile strength together with ductility, resistance
to wear, corrosion, high endurance to fatigue are
some of the desirable properties for material of
crankshaft.
Plain carbon’ steels with percentage of carbon varying
from 0.2 to 0.4 are used for crankshaft of slow
speed large diesel engines of cast throw, semi-built
construction.
For forged throw the p.c. of carbon may be raised to a
maximum limit of 0.5%. Higher speed engines
requiring greater hardness at crank pin and journal
surfaces use alloy steel.
 Working Stress:
The calculation of working stress is a complex
procedure. With the materials of above description
the working stress could be as follows:
50.3 MN/M2 or 5.13 kgf/mm2 in case of carbon steel
and not more than 69 MN/m2 or 7 kgf/mm2 in case
of alloy steel.
The stress calculation involves —
(a) Calculation of cyclic nominal bending stress
corrected for inertia of reciprocating masses.
(b) Calculation of cyclic nominal shear stress based
on conventional torque variation in each cycle.
(c) The working stress calculation should take into
account:
i) a dynamic magnification factor for torsional
vibration by a stress value above the nominal
stress
ii) a fatigue strength reduction factor due to the
presence of any oil hole or a shoulder.
iii) a stress concentration factor for the oil holes and
fillets at the underside of the crankpin with the
crankwebs.
 Construction:

Large diesel engine crankshafts are mostly semi-built

but may also be fully built in some cases. Engines
of smaller powers have their crankshafts drop
forged.
In the fully-built construction all components, i.e.
webs and pins, are separately made and then
shrunk together.
In the semibuilt construction a crank throw consisting
of the webs, its backward extension and the pin are
forged out or cast in one piece.
In applying forging, the crankshaft is best formed by
the fold-forge method.
The ingot is first forged down to the shape of a long
cylindrical form.
A portion from both ends are flattened to the
approximate shape of webs.
It is then folded taking care that the bends remain
free from defects.
Forging produces a sound material by closing in
small cavities.
The process of working produces change in the
macrostructure of the metal that leads to a finer
grain size.
The metallic fibres flow in longitudinal direction which
results in a product of higher mechanicalstrength.
The forgings are gradually and uniformly hot worked.
They are made from ingots of plain carbon steel or
alloy steel.
The main bearing journal ns are shrunk in.
The shrinkage grip alone is relied on to transmit
the power.
The surfaces- are smoothly prepared with proper
shrinkage allowance so that maximum surface
grip is available.
The grip pressure is carefully estimated.
The limiting factor being the yield point at th
surface under grip.
An interference fit of 1.4/1000 is not to be
exceeded in large diesel engine crankshafts.
Inspection tests carried out on pins, pin fillets and journals
of the finished crankshaft are the magnetic particle and
ultrasonic tests which are meant to detect, any surface
and sub-surface flaws.
Large crankshafts are built in two parts joined together by
flanged couplings. A fully assembled crankshaft will also
carry the gear or sprocket wheel for the camshaft drive,
a flywheel at the after end and the thrust shaft. The
machining of oil holes should be smooth. The outer
portion is reamered and rounded off. Fillets are curved
out smoothly and cold rolled at the fillet radius to
strengthen the fillet from bending fatigue effect. A high
degree of smoothness is given at pin and journal
surfaces so that notching arising out of machining tool is
removed from surfaces. The high carbon content of the
material produces a hard wear resisting surface.
Sometimes casting of the crank throw is preferred to
forgings for economic reasons.
Casting gives a coarse grained structure of the material.
The mechanical properties and the homogenuity would
be inferior.
It always contains micro-defects which are sensitive to
notch effect and do not contribute to fatigue life.
Both casting and forgings however, are to be fully
annealed. A casting process of B & W engine
crankshaft is described below: